Is Joe Biden Trying to Limit Americans to Four Pounds of Red Meat Per Year?
No.
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Over the weekend, Republican politicians and personalities claimed that President Joe Biden’s climate plan would require Americans to cut their red meat consumption by 90 percent, allowing only four pounds of red meat per year.
These claims came on the heels of Biden committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by the year 2030 at a climate summit on Thursday. It appears to have originated with an article in the British tabloid The Daily Mail that explores hypothetical ways in which Americans could reduce their emissions. In the headline—”How Biden's climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH, cost $3.5K a year per person in taxes, force you to spend $55K on an electric car and 'crush' American jobs”—the word “could” is doing a lot of work. As the article notes, such proposals are not from a Biden plan, as the president “is yet to release any firm details on exactly how such a plan [to reduce greenhouse gas emissions] will affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans.”
The basis for the red meat claim comes not from any plan released or endorsed by Biden, but from a study by the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems published January 13, 2020. The paper calculated that if Americans reduced meat consumption by 50 percent with a 90 percent reduction of beef specifically, there would be a 51 percent decline in greenhouse gas emissions produced by meat production.
The study concluded: “These results further emphasize the importance of addressing agriculture, food systems and nutritional education when considering climate change interventions. Such dietary changes will require the concerted efforts of policymakers, the food industry and consumers.” Biden has indicated neither this is a path his administration will pursue nor that he would force Americans to cut back on how much meat they eat.
Correction, April 28: An earlier version of this fact check stated the study on meat consumption came from Michigan University; the school’s name is the University of Michigan.
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I can't decide what is funnier.... Fox News running with the 'one burger a month' story which was patently false on its face to anyone with a brain, or the fact that Donald Trump Jr. "ate four pounds of red meat yesterday".
Just fools all the way around.
Trump spent four years governing (if that's the word for it) by telling Big Lies on a regular -- often daily --basis, going out with the Biggest Lie ever, namely, that he won the election. The Trump wing of the Republican Party (which could actually be a majority of the party, it's hard to tell) now continues in the Boss's tradition by attacking the Biden administration with Big Lies. (The Trump wing also still believes, Heaven help us, that Trump won the election.) And Fox News continues its role of promoting those Big Lies as the gospel truth. It's disheartening. There are ample grounds for criticizing the size and scope of Joe Biden's legislative program without resorting to this kind of nonsense, which the right wing press swallows whole and spews out to Trump Nation, who eagerly gobble it down, making them crazier then ever.
Please pardon the florid metaphor, but it springs from despair, as I become increasingly convinced that the voice of reason (e.g., Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney) will never regain the upper hand in the GOP, which would be bad for the party and worse for the country. I say this as a lifelong registered Independent who is able to vote for reasonable Republicans here in Massachusetts (Governor Charlie Baker, former senator Scott Brown) but is scared to death of the national party's drastic turn to populism, nativism and a no-compromise mindset, which was already brewing during the Bush presidency but speeded up exponentially with the election of Barak Obama. Remember Mitch McConnell saying in early 2009 that his primary goal was to ensure that Obama was a one-term president? That's no way to run an airline.